A Charming Bistro with a Diet-Challenging Bakery
Tarrytown’s new dining destination
The most difficult thing about dining at Chiboust is getting a reservation. Since it opened earlier this year, it has been booked solid for weeks in advance. The second most difficult challenge is finding a parking space in a neighborhood of quaint restaurants and shops. The third hurdle, at least for those of us who are calorie challenged, is getting past the antique display case chock-a-block with pastries.
That Chiboust would offer, among other things, irresistible pastries is natural enough, considering the fact that the owner, Jill Rose, earned her toque blanche as the pastry sous chef at Lespinasse. Plus the restaurant is named after a French chef who invented the Crème Chiboust, a confectioner’s cream of stiffly beaten egg whites and whipped cream most frequently seen in a gâteau Saint-Honoré.
But don’t go to Chiboust for the irresistible sweets—only. Go for chef Alberto Tirrito’s bouillabaisse swimming with fresh mussels, clams and squid, the braised lamb shank and a dish you resisted when your mother put it on the table, liver and onions—all worth a parking ticket.
One evening, my guest and I shared appetizers: I sampled his soft-shell crabs on a bed of fresh wilted spinach, soft and not the least bit crunchy, while he dug into my portion of Chiboust’s gravlax, cured in the restaurant’s kitchen. To say that the gravlax portions are generous is like saying the Yankees and Red Sox play baseball games; every time I moved a bit of endive or a lettuce leaf, another piece of exceptional salmon made its appearance.
Mom and army chow lines have given me an aversion to liver and onions, but one of my guests savored Chiboust’s version, pan-seared paillard with onions with a red wine demi-glace. There’s also a platter of in-house made pâté de campagne, chicken liver terrine and sausages with bread. (The bread offered at each table is the traditional Italian ciabatta.)
Chiboust has one of the most original wine lists I have seen. Traditionally, French wines are cataloged by the region of their origin (Bordeaux, Burgundy) and “New World” wines like California and New Zealand by the grape (Chardonnay, Shiraz). Chiboust’s vintages are all organized by their grape, so you’ll see a classic French like Château Duhart-Milon-Rothschilde called a “Cabernet blend,” right alongside American, Italian and from “down under” wines, and even Greek wines.
A restaurant called Chiboust of course has to have an eponymous dessert, and this one is a baked custard of passion fruit topped with papaya jam and white chocolate curls on a cashew crust—worth every calorie (see Dining, page 129).
But what to do about the crowds? To meet the demand, Chiboust has added a couple of tiny tables in the front, looking out the storefront onto the street. But you wouldn’t want to eat there. It’s too close to the tempting pastry case.
CHIBOUST BISTRO & BAKERY
14 Main St., Tarrytown
(914) 703-6550
HOURS:
Lunch, Wed. to Mon. 11:30 am-3 pm
Dinner, Mon. and Wed. and Thurs. 5:30-9:30 pm, Fri. and Sat. 5:30-10 pm
Brunch menu available weekends
PRICES:
Appetizers: $7-$12
Entrees: $19-$26
Desserts: $4.75